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SERMONS

Palm Sunday
April 1, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Today, on Palm Sunday, we do things in church that we simply do not do on any other Sunday. The reading of the Passion Gospel is one of those things. We don’t read the Gospel in parts on any other Sunday of the church year. As you well know, most Sundays the priest or the deacon reads the whole gospel, after processing the gospel book into the midst of the people. The people speak a little before and after the gospel, but the congregation does not participate in the reading of the gospel on any other Sunday.

But on this one day every year -- on the Sunday before Easter every year -- we read the gospel together, in parts. Everyone has a part, because if you don’t have an assigned part, you still get to say the parts marked “Congregation.” So everybody in the church participates in the telling of the story of the last hours and days of the life of Jesus.

The parts we all say together as congregation -- invite us to participate in the story in several places. We, the congregation, play different parts at different points in the passion drama. The first time the congregation participates in the story, we are the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemene, asking Jesus whether we should draw our swords to protect him from arrest. We sound pretty good there -- definitely on Jesus’s side. But once Jesus is arrested, things begin to change. The second time we as speak, we are the guards guarding Jesus. Only we’re mocking him. As we take turns beating the blindfolded Jesus, we mock him, saying, Now, prophet, who hit you? Tell us that.

First thing the next morning, we are members of the Council, questioning the defendant Jesus about his messianic claims. Then we’re the accusers before Pilate, reciting to Pilate the indictment against Jesus: We found this man subverting our nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and claiming to be...a king.

Then we become the voices of the crowd gathered before Pilate. And one of the things that Luke’s gospel tells us is that three or four times in the course of the story, Pilate tries his best to release Jesus -- to let him off with a only flogging. But every single time Pilate tries, we in the crowd won’t let him, and we become more insistent: Away with him! Give us Barabbas, we shout. Crucify him, crucify him!

And Pilate sentences Jesus to death. Barabbas is released and Jesus is led away to be executed. But our part in the drama is not quite finished -- we have a few more lines to speak. For as Jesus Christ hangs on the cross, we are part of the crowd, standing at the foot of the cross, watching Jesus suffer and adding our voices to the chorus of mockers and taunters.

We say to one another, He saved others: now let him save himself, if he is the Messiah. We say to Jesus, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

How does it feel to play-act these parts of the drama? To participate in the drama of our Lord’s passion as the people who beat Jesus, and accuse Jesus, and mock him, even when he’s hanging on the cross? How did it feel to shout, Crucify him, crucify him! It’s difficult. Our corporate reading of the Passioin Gospel brings us face to face with our complicity in the crucifixion of Christ. The range of parts we play in this drama give us a window on our own human natures -- our inconstancy, our weakness, our cruelty.

One minute we’re being the helpful disciples: Hey, Jesus, do you want us to draw our swords for you? The next minute, we’re the mockers at the foot of the cross, saying: Hey Jesus, if you are such a great king and all, save yourself!

Our participation in the Passion Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us in no uncertain terms of our fickleness, our inconstancy. And if that weren’t enough -- if the Passion Gospel alone were not enough to convince us of this, then we have a second drama that we stage today, on Palm Sunday -- the drama of Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday and only on Palm Sunday, we reenact Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We wave our palms and we shout Hosanna! We again play the part of the crowd, giving Jesus a hero’s welcome.

And the two dramas we reenact this Sunday bring us up short. For in the first drama, we welcome Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna in the highest!” but in the second drama, we shout “Crucify him! Crucify him!” In the first drama, we watch Jesus make his way to Jerusalem seated on the back of a colt, with palm branches and cloaks strewn ev’where, but in the second drama, we watch Jesus stumble his way through Jerusalem to the place where he will be crucified.

Our inconstancy is writ large upon the canvas of Palm Sunday. And just about the time it dawns on us that Palm Sunday reveals the worst cruelty human beings are capable of, it begins to dawn on us that Jesus died for us anyway. That Jesus gave his life to save us, even after we showed him what our natures are capable of, even after we denied him and betrayed him and crucified him.

And that’s part of the mystery we contemplate today on Palm Sunday and throughout the week we call Holy -- how Jesus endured the pain and humiliation of the cross to save our souls, when God knows full well the cruelty and inconstancy we are capable of.

Jesus died to save us. We confess faith in a God who suffered, died, and was resurrected, to defeat death for us, once and for all. Amen.